Your Right to Know

By Steven YaccinoTHE NEW YORK TIMES • Sunday October 27, 2013 10:05 AM

With safety-net spending under review across the country, proposals to make welfare and
unemployment checks contingent on drug testing have become a routine rallying cry in dozens of
states.

But the impact of drug-testing measures has been limited.

Supporters say the tests are needed to protect welfare and unemployment compensation funds as
the nation emerges from the recession.

But their enactment often has been hampered by legal challenges and the expense of running the
programs, which generally uncover relatively few drug users.

Drug testing of welfare recipients in Florida was halted by a federal judge. The rollout of a
similar program in Georgia was suspended indefinitely as a result of the Florida ruling. Measures
in other states have been narrowed in scope, primarily to keep administrative costs low and avoid
protracted court battles.

Last week, legislators in Michigan, after failing to agree on more-robust drug-testing bills in
recent years, approved a measure that would withhold unemployment compensation from people who fail
drug tests given as part of job interviews. The approach, a one-year pilot program, leaves it up to
prospective employers to screen applicants and does not force businesses to test or report the
results.

“We just didn’t want to waste people’s time,” Ken Goike, a state representative in the
Republican-majority Legislature and sponsor of the bill, said about legal considerations. “Why go
through all this if it’s just going to be busted down?”

If signed by Gov. Rick Snyder, the Michigan bill would join drug-testing laws enacted this year
in Kansas, Texas and North Carolina that try to navigate a delicate legal landscape.

This year, at least 29 states considered drug testing for people who receive cash assistance
from the primary federal welfare program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, but only two
measures passed, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Ten states considered
testing laws for unemployment compensation benefits, and two measures passed.

In all, despite a steady wave of bills introduced largely by Republican-led legislatures since
2011, only nine states have passed drug-testing bills related to welfare recipients. At least six
passed them for unemployment compensation, although Wisconsin repealed a law last year that
required employers to report failed tests.

Opponents say the laws amount to an unfair attack on America’s most vulnerable and that people
receiving public assistance and unemployment benefits are no more likely to use drugs than anyone
else.

Yet, even critics admit the issue poses little political risk for lawmakers backing the
measures, regardless of what form they take.

“A lot of it’s just posturing to show I’m tough on drugs,” said Rebecca Dixon, a policy analyst
for the National Employment Law Project.

David Holt, a state senator from Oklahoma, where welfare applicants must fill out questionnaires
to determine their eligibility for drug testing, said suspicion-based laws save states money
because they reduce the number of people who are required to submit urine samples.

“I think what we did was just smarter,” he said.

But even with prescreenings, testing programs have not exposed rampant drug use by those
applying for public assistance or unemployment insurance.

In the seven months after the law took effect in November, Oklahoma officials screened nearly
1,900 applicants, conducted 537 drug tests and denied benefits to 83 people. The testing cost about
$80,000. In Florida, 108 out of 4,086 applicants failed drug tests. The cost: $118,140.